1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic musical instrument in which the mode for generating musical tones is controlled through the use of registration data composed of a plurality of control parameters for controlling the mode for generating musical tones, the mode being specified by a plurality of setting operators provided on an operating panel.
2. Description of the Related Art
As shown in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 07-253780, there has been a well-known registration function. In the registration function, musical tone control parameters such as tone color data representative of a tone color of a musical tone to be generated, loudness data representative of the loudness of a musical tone to be generated, style data for specifying the type of accompaniment tones, effect data representative of an effect to be added to a musical tone to be generated are previously stored in a memory as a set of registration data. Alternatively, the registration data set is specified by a user through the use of a plurality of setting operators provided on an operating panel and is written into the memory. In this conventional scheme, each registration data set is assigned to a button to make it possible to read out a registration data set with single button operation even during performance of a song, enabling the user to establish the mode for generating musical tones on an electronic musical instrument in a short time. Recently, in addition, another type of electronic musical instrument came on the market. In this electronic musical instrument, a set of registration data also contains automatic performance specifying data for specifying a set of automatic performance data (MIDI song data) so that the user's selection of a registration data set followed by the user's operation of a reproduction start switch causes generation of automatic performance tones on the basis of the automatic performance data set specified by the automatic performance specifying data.
In the above-described conventional apparatuses, however, voice data (audio song data) representative of voice signal cannot be automatically specified on the basis of registration data. Therefore, the conventional electronic musical instruments are unable to play a melody part while generating accompaniment tones on the basis of previously recorded voice data or to add an audio song or audio phrase as background music (BGM) or effect tones during a performance by a user or during reproduction of automatic performance tones on the basis of automatic performance data.